


how it's going to be

by luckyfilbert



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen, M/M, Period-Typical Acephobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1842787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckyfilbert/pseuds/luckyfilbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Steve looks back over his shoulder in time to see the girl lean up to whisper in Bucky's ear, and Steve doesn't need to hear the words. He knows what they'll be. "What if he," and even if he couldn't guess, Bucky's face confirms it. Shocked anger at her and then confusion at him, and then something--sad.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Steve can't even make an expression to deny it. He doesn't know.</i>
</p>
<hr/><p>Pre-CATFA Steve comes to terms with his sexuality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how it's going to be

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblrites twistytooth and youvintagewitch, who requested Steve/Bucky + puberty.

**12.**

“Who do you like?”

They’re lying on the floor of Bucky’s apartment, his sisters playing in the corner as they wait for his mother to come home. Bucky lolls his head sideways to look at Steve.

Steve rocks his toes together. Afternoon sunlight casts rocking shadows underneath, dwarfing his real feet. “I like a lot of people.”

A dramatic eyeroll. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“You _know_ what I mean.” Bucky cranes his eyes at the dustmotes. “I like Elena Kuznetsoff.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth twists down. He corrects it before Bucky can see.

“She’s pretty. I bet her hair is real soft. And she’s smart.”

“You’re smarter,” Steve mutters under the sound of the Barnes’ girls chatter.

Bucky hears anyway. “I am not.”

“You are.”

“Am _not_.” Laughing, he rolls over to lightly punch Steve’s arm, setting up a cloud of dust. He flops back onto one elbow, head cocked, staring at Steve. “Well?”

Steve coughs through the dust and smiles weakly. The sunlight is filtering through Bucky’s hair, turning it a chestnut gold. “I don’t like anyone.”

Another playful shove. “You have to. If you had to pick right now, who’d you choose?”

It sets a cold knot in Steve’s stomach. _Picking_ means marriage and family. It means best friends playing second fiddle to wives and children and jobs. It happened with his mother, her friends drifting away to half-remembered faces to have drinks with once a month or once a year. He knew he would lose Bucky eventually. He just didn’t know it would happen this soon.

With an effort, he keeps the smile on his face. “Guess I’ll have to think about it.”

___

**15.**

“There, see? You ain’t half bad when you wear clothes that fit.”

Bucky is standing behind Steve in the bathroom mirror, surveying his handiwork. Steve shifts his shoulders under the shirt’s soft cotton. He grimaces. “It’s too tight.”

“It ain’t tight, it just fits.”

Steve shifts again and tries to ignore the fabric touching him, defining the shape of his body. “It’s just a social, Bucky, do I have to look this nice?”

Bucky straightens the fabric that Steve’s already wrinkled. “You oughta look less like a kid.”

“We are kids,” Steve mutters, though at fifteen Bucky’s body is almost a man’s. His reflection stands a head above Steve and half again as wide. Steve doesn’t know whether to pull away or lean into him. 

“Now we just gotta spruce you up a little.” Suddenly Bucky’s arm is looped over Steve, rolling up his shirtsleeves with practiced fingers. Steve holds very still and practices his grimace. Finishing with the sleeves, Bucky completes the look by reaching up a quick hand to undo Steve’s top button, broadening the collar over his throat.

“I don’t think so,” Steve forces out as a laugh, re-doing the button almost before Bucky has lowered his hand. The air on his uncovered throat makes a hot fist in his gut.

“Aw contrayer,” says Bucky, whose latest fancy is Ines Dupart. He undoes the top button again and swats Steve’s hand away. 

Steve eyes his transformation in the mirror. The new shirt isn’t that tight, he has to admit; Bucky guessed his size well. But it’s a far cry from his usual baggy clothes. Trim and tailored, it leaves nothing to the imagination, outlining the width of his shoulders and the angle of his waist. He fidgets, too much on display. Wanting to change back into loose obscurity.

“And now your hair.” Bucky’s hand reaches over Steve to pull his hair oil off the shelf.

“I like my hair.”

“Well, you’re the only one.” Bucky splashes some into his palms and rubs them together, the smell rising up. It’s strong, almost clogging in the small room, and even though it’s the smell of Bucky, Steve cringes away from it. The shirt he can entertain, in here, for Bucky’s sake. He can change before they go out. But the hair...

Even if he musses it up, the smell will be there, telling everyone that he tried to look like more than he is, betraying these useless efforts. The girls at the dance will know. Worse, when he gets home, his mother will know. And she’ll get that little smile on her face that says she is proud of him, but she’ll be proud of this version of him; this false, pretend Steve that makes his gut churn and his throat hurt, that makes him want to close his eyes and curl away from the world.

“Bucky, leave it.”

“Aw c’mon, Steve, you’ll look great.”

“ _Bucky._ " His voice shakes on it. He hates that.

Bucky’s hand stills. His eyes are wide in the mirror. “Okay.” He puts the bottle down, wipes his hands on a towel. “Okay, Steve, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

And Steve realizes he’s almost _crying,_ almost, eyes red and throat clogged. “It’s okay,” Bucky murmurs again, and wraps his arms cautiously around Steve, gathering him against his chest like he used to when Steve was hurt or sick and they were too young for it to mean anything else. Steve lets himself rest there for one long blink before he’s shoving Bucky away, tearing at the buttons and ripping the too-fine shirt over his head, pulling back into his own worn clothes, throwing open the door and rushing out away from Bucky’s half-raised hand, his “Steve—”

___

**17.**

Bucky drags Steve to the party with him. “You gotta live!” he declares, bounding ahead of Steve and then running back down the sidewalk. “Get your head out of those newspapers.” 

“I work for those newspapers,” Steve says, which is a bit of an exaggeration for the two cartoons he’s had printed. “And you’ll be happy for them if Germany—”

“Steve.” Bucky stops suddenly and plants his hands on Steve’s shoulders. He might be a little drunk. “You’re seventeen and the most you’ve said to a girl is ‘pass the salt.’ I am doing this,” he loops an arm around him, “for your own good.”

…

_This_ is a birthday party at Maria Cassani’s place. Half their class is there, crowded into the small apartment, as Mr. and Mrs. Cassani greet everyone and take refuge in their bedroom. After half-hearted cake and well wishes, a not-quite-outgrown vestige of their childhoods, the party breaks into its real purpose: drinks and a sloppy game of Blind Man’s Buff. One person is blindfolded, spun around, and pushed into the crowd to stumble about and paw at people. “You have to guess who’s who,” Bucky explains to Steve. “If you’re wrong—”

“—you have to kiss!” cries Maria, swinging in around Bucky’s shoulder. The crowd makes a chant of it, and Steve, palms suddenly cold, looks at Bucky, who just offers his best _who, me_ smile.

Maria herself is the first It. She doesn’t even touch Steve. After that Bucky nudges Steve closer to the middle of the crowd, but everyone recognizes him: he’s by far the shortest person not in a dress. The girls just touch his shoulders briefly before confirming his name. Bucky ruffles his hair with a grin and a “Hiya, Stevie.” It’s not terrible, really. The surge of hot worry lessens with each It. 

The blindfold has passed around half the guests when a muffled falsetto calls out, “Steve next!”

Steve looks around and sees Bucky grinning like the cat with its cream. “Yeah, Steve!” he agrees in his normal voice.

There are a few half-enthused whoops and the next thing Steve knows, Bucky’s twirling the blindfold between his fingers and gesturing him over. Steve goes, chest tight.

“I don’t know their names,” Steve protests as the blindfold cuts off his vision.

“Then aren’t you lucky,” Bucky teases. He snugs the knot behind Steve’s head and gives him a light push. 

By sheer coincidence, Steve recognizes the first person he bumps into. It’s the girl he sits behind in history, with the soft laugh and the ruffled sleeves. Her name is, “Bridget?” he guesses.

Playful cheers, and Bridget spins him around and pushes him away from her.

He stumbles against Bucky’s chest. “Not _me,_ pal,” and Bucky steadies him and passes him on.

The third person is a girl, his height, with taffeta sleeves and a ringlet down one shoulder. “I don’t—” Steve starts, the worry all clamming up at once.

“Well then,” the girl says softly. He can feel her mischevious grin as she holds the sides of his face, fingers fleshy points of contact. She pulls him forward. Lips sticky with lipstick. Her tongue, when she nudges it into his mouth, is rough tastebuds. Warm spit. 

Steve’s gut twists and clamps against his lungs. He pulls away and wrenches off the blindfold and wipes his mouth. His face is hot, his eyes prickling. He shoves the blindfold at the nearest person and pushes through the crowd.

“That’s not how the game works!” Bucky calls, laughing. Steve looks back over his shoulder in time to see Maria, next to Bucky, lean up to whisper in his ear, and Steve doesn’t need to hear the words. He knows what they’ll be. _"What if he,"_ and even if he couldn’t guess, Bucky’s face confirms it. Shocked anger at Maria and then confusion at him, and then something—sad. 

Steve can’t even make an expression to deny it. He doesn’t know.

…

Bucky finds him outside, sitting on the steps. By rights it should be raining, or at least cold, but it’s a balmy summer night and Steve has nothing to excuse his mood. He tries for a smile as Bucky walks up.

“We’ve got to get you out more, if that’s your idea of fun.” Steve wipes casually at his face. “Maybe try reading the papers.”

Bucky scuffs his toe and looks down, wincing. Steve watches him.

“It was awful,” he summarizes.

“Just cuz she was drunk,” Bucky tries, halfhearted.

“Then why did you push me at her?” Steve knows Bucky’s been with the girl. Has seen them kissing. Bucky probably engineered this whole thing so Steve would have the best first kissing experience he could ask for.

Bucky looks up and Steve looks away. He can feel Bucky’s eyes, picture the crease between his brows, as he stares blankly into the street. Warm air cool on his warmer face. He swallows, hard. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“No, Stevie—” and he can hear it, the confusion, the sadness, the hope that Steve not be _like that._

“There is.” Steve chokes. “I can—”

“Then we’ll fix it, Stevie, we’ll fix it,” Bucky insists, scuffing his boot toe. “We’ll figure it out.”

___

**18.**

“Who are you taking me to meet?”

“Georgie.” Bucky quickens his pace, then slows it for Steve. “Nice, sharp. Your type.”

Steve wonders how Bucky has decided what his _type_ is but doesn’t ask. “How do you know her?”

“Who?”

“Georgia. The girl you’re taking me to meet.” Steve eyes Bucky walking next to him, hands in pockets, looking all around and nowhere at all. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

Bucky puts a grin on his face and turns it on Steve briefly. “Nothing, pal. C’mon, here we are.”

They’ve barely left the neighborhood. Steve’s eyes are on Bucky, on the way his hand shakes a little when he holds the door for Steve, how his throat bobs, and he misses reading the sign over the door. He steps into the bar, beginning to shuck off his coat, and stops.

That’s why they’re so nearby. That’s why Bucky is almost shaking with nerves. Steve has walked past this place a hundred times, head down, wondering, but never—

“Here we go.” Bucky pulls a youth out of the crowd of men. “Steve, this is Georgie. Georgie, meet Steve.”

Georgie is tall and slim, with a shock of dark hair and a warm smile. Steve looks at him and back to Bucky, who is wearing, with an effort, the same encouraging grin he wears every time he sets Steve up with a girl. And something _thocks_ in Steve’s chest, but whether it’s adrenaline or nerves or just his usual fondness for Bucky, he doesn’t know.

Bucky claps Steve’s shoulder on his way out. “Good luck.”

…

Bucky is still awake when Steve comes home, slipping quietly into their darkened apartment. His sheets rustle as he sits up in bed. “Well?”

“He’s very nice.” Steve switches on a light and moves about the room, hanging up his coat, his bag. “He’s got a sister in Chappaqua and he wants to be an architect. He’s a better dancer than you. More patient.”

For some reason Bucky’s ears turn red. “And—did you—?”

Steve sighs and throws himself into a chair. “Did I _what,_ Bucky?”

His mouth works soundlessly for a moment as his face turns even redder. “Not _that,_ I mean, not that if you had—just— Did it feel right? Better than with girls?”

“Well, it was nice not having to spin him under my arm.” At Bucky’s expression, Steve throws up his hands. “I don’t know what you’re asking for, Buck. Did it feel right—like what? Did it feel like what?”

“You’ll know,” Bucky insists, stolid, pleading. “If it feels right, you’ll know.”

Steve shrugs and begins pulling off his shoes. “Then it didn’t.”

___

**18.**

Steve tries it, a few weeks later. Bucky’s working a second shift and he’s out of commissions for the paper, and he’s bored and. Curious, maybe. Wondering. He’s seen men in the alleyways on his walk home, doing for each other or just using their hands. Hell, he’s heard Bucky grunting under his sheets at night, after he thinks Steve’s asleep. He knows what to do. Roughly.

It starts all right. Hand on himself just like he’s pissing or washing, except not like that at all. Like somebody else’s hand. On him. He moves faster. And it’s not—it could be— He can see why people— 

It’s sick. He’s a beast, rutting, dogs in the street. His head burns with disgust. He stops. Shaking, fingers gripping the sheets. This is worse. Half drawn out, it’s painful, unfinished, the feeling still churning inside him. Easier to go the whole way. 

So he does. It’s animal movements, insistent. He hates it. Hates that all of his brain is bent to this one thing. Hates the burst of pleasure that is the only good part of it. Hates that he lies there panting after, his vision starred, that this—that every human born does this and lives for it, their driving force, and he can’t—one more thing that he can’t—

He is disgusting.

Later, when the revulsion is too much, he levers himself out of bed and into the bathroom. Wipes off his hand, runs the bath. And then just sits. Needing desperately to be clean but not able to touch himself. 

…

Steve is perched at the table when Bucky comes home, his sketchbook in front of him. He’s been there almost an hour doodling the same thing, jagged trails of raindrops.

“Hiya, Stevie,” Bucky calls, then stops. Steve doesn’t have to look up to see the sly smile spreading over his face. He cleaned everything up, but of course. Of course Bucky can smell it.

“Steve, did you have a _girl_ over?” His voice is all smiles and pride. “Or, uh, a—”

“No.” He pencils in more raindrops.

“Oh.” A pause as Bucky sloughs his coat. “But then you at least…”

Steve outlines a park bench under the rain. “Y’know, Buck, there’s this thing called personal boundaries, you should look into it.”

Bucky watches him for a moment, quietly. His shoes are heavy as he walks over, toes out a chair, sits across from Steve, head bent to watch Steve fill in waterlogged woodgrain. After several minutes, he tugs the sketchbook away from him.

“This is the most fucking depressing drawing I’ve ever seen.”

Steve taps the pencil, looking at the sketchbook, the table, Bucky’s hands. Bucky’s gaze is heavier the longer he avoids it.

_Tap tap tap, thock,_ as Steve slams the pencil down. “Bucky, just leave it, okay. You can’t help this time. I’m just not—there’s something _wrong_ —”

“Hey.” Bucky pulls the pencil away. “Stop it.”

Steve clenches his teeth and swallows.

“You’re my Steve,” Bucky says, voice shaky but firm. “You’re _you._ There’s nothing—you’re not—dammit—” He pushes out of his chair and rounds the table to kneel by Steve, then hesitates, unsure. With a ragged sigh, Steve lets his head rest against Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky loops a hand over his neck and buries his face in Steve’s hair. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he whispers, fierce. “There’s not, Stevie, please, there’s not, you’re you, you’re perfect—”

___

**Author's Note:**

> So I maybe took the puberty prompt a little too seriously. It's my headcanon that Steve is asexual and pan/demi-romantic, and I wanted to look at his coming to terms with that. Usual disclaimer that asexuality is a broad spectrum and this is not representative of everyone's experiences.
> 
> The title probably isn't distinctive enough to need credit, but I got it from Bastille's The Weight Of Living, Pt. II.


End file.
